The English thing was also obviously a big deal – you need to be able to communicate with your team mates.

Was it? Alexis and Santi barely speak English either and Alexis in his first season here surely didn’t speak any more than Gabriel. Hell even managers like Poch have succeeded without speaking English.

Was it? Alexis and Santi barely speak English either and Alexis in his first season here surely didn’t speak any more than Gabriel.

I think it’s probably a lot more important that centre backs are in constant comunication with each other than it is for other positions on the pitch… a CB that dosent understand a word his CB partner says is a lot more of a problem than an attacking player not understanding a word the midfeilders say for example

Was it? Alexis and Santi barely speak English either and Alexis in his first season here surely didn’t speak any more than Gabriel. Hell even managers like Poch have succeeded without speaking English.

I think the problem was rather that he isn’t good.

Gabriel’s lack of English and a breakdown in communication has actually been cited as the reason we conceded certain goals though - Marcus Rashford’s for example. Even Wenger blamed his English for that one. Wenger also said a few times that it is a big problem and might cost us goals - particularly for a defender, as Kaner pointed out.

In the end we’re talking about one or two word commands, though, the game doesn’t give time for anything more (even when playing with people who speak the same language as you, your communication is rarely more than one or two words in game). How long could it really take him to learn the 10 or so one word commands? I doubt more than a week. Any other more complicated instruction could be given to him at half time in Spanish or Portuguese.

I think the Gabriel language thing is just kind of codeword for: this guy isn’t a very intelligent footballer. We talk about this guy like he came from some indigenous tribe or something and spoke some strange dialect that wasn’t translatable. How many times in the history of football have players who didn’t speak a lick of the language in the country they were going to play gone over and been fine, learned what they needed to know, and got on with it? Countless…

PPB:

Santi certainly speaks decent enough English to communicate on and off the pitch. It’s quite a stretch saying otherwise.

I meant in his first season when he didn’t speak any but didn’t make that understood in my post.